Top Line

Oh man, oh man, oh man. I love it when I stumble across a beautiful gem buried amidst a pile of garbage, and the latest gem is a little Italian science fiction adventure from 1988 called TOP LINE. TOP LINE promises one thing then delivers another, in the best possible way. Take a gander at its poster and it seems to promise a riveting adventure in the vein of an Indiana Jones film, with stars Franco Nero and Deborah Barrymore swinging from a rope (in improbable stances) across a chasm in a deep cave with the busted wreckage of what appears to be a steamship in the background. This imagery is slightly misleading in that a) it's not a steamship they find in the cavern but a 15th century wooden galleon of some sort (if I'm remembering correctly), b) Barrymore's character isn't present when it's discovered, and c) this movie is way, way more than the average adventure film that this poster promises. For starters, the film's alternate title was ALIEN TERMINATOR and, oh my yes, it delivers on this promise. Let's start with some context. Nero plays Ted Angelo, an alcoholic writer who's been living in Colombia on his publisher's dime while trying to put together his next piece of work. Tired of waiting for Angelo to sober up and do his job, his editor/ex-wife Maureen (Mary Stavin) fires him, offering to buy him a plane ticket back home to Italy. By a stroke of luck, Angelo stumbles across an old Aztec dagger in the possession of his…Colombian sexy-time friend? Anyway, he makes plans to sell the dagger and make a nice profit but problems arise when those he contacts about selling it are murdered. Fearing for his life, he traces the dagger back to where it was found and discovers something that puts him at the top of everyone's hit list.

You should be warned: the first twenty minutes or so of this movie are pretty dull. At this point, it's just getting all the exposition out of the way. Angelo is an alcoholic. He's a writer, lives in Colombia. Spends most of his time passed out amid a swarm of empty bottles or cans instead of working. He's divorced and still works for his ex-wife (that takes some guts) and he seems like a bit of a running joke amongst his peers. Then, one day, his…I really don't know…hotel masseuse (?) busts out with an ornate Aztec dagger she borrowed off her boyfriend and Angelo has dollar signs in his eyes. At this point, the movie still has a very low-budget Indiana Jones vibe. Angelo is trying to find a fence for this hot product (it's mentioned that it's a crime to sell artifacts) but people are dropping dead around him. Worried it might've been stolen from the private collection of a powerful antique dealer (George Kennedy), Angelo traces it the dagger back to where it was discovered, an enormous cavern containing the wreckage of an old wooden sailing ship…and more. Now TOP LINE ditches any Indiana Jones adventure pretense and goes full science fiction and Angelo discovers an alien spacecraft hidden within. Now Angelo, the writer, has the story of the century as long as he can find someone that will believe him. This was one of the movie's funniest elements, in my opinion: Angelo desperately pleading like a mad man for someone to believe his tale of an ancient buried alien ship. I'm sure the filmmakers wanted us to feel the tension but it instantly melts away the moment I hear Nero raving about "flying saucers". Now, for the remaining hour or so of the movie's runtime, TOP LINE becomes one long awesome chase and this is where it gets interesting.

The last hour of this 90 minute movie makes it all worthwhile. Angelo is chased by increasingly dangerous opponents. One of my favorite parts of the film has Angelo evading capture by ditching his shoes (to confuse the men tracing his footsteps in the sand) and running barefoot into the desert. This turns out to be the worst possible thing he could've done because the deranged antique dealer then begins a low-speed car chase wherein he trails poor Angelo, forcing him to run barefoot through a long stretch of cacti. He just idles along behind Angelo, laughing insanely and nudging him along with his bumper when he stumbles to his knees in exhaustion. When Angelo tries to bring this UFO to the world's attention through a major New York news outlet, it sends a team immediately to South America to accompany Angelo back to the alien craft. But, surprise! Even the news crew is a secret team of assassins out to silence him. The only person he can trust is a woman named June (Barrymore) whom…and I'm being completely honest…I don't even remember being introduced. I'm sure it happened at some point in the first boring 20 minutes but I had no recollection of who she was or why she was suddenly along for the ride. I don't know who she is, but I'm sure she regrets her unfortunate involvement when they're suddenly faced with the (alternately) titular alien terminator, which doesn't even make an appearance until the last thirty minutes. Poor Angelo has the local police, the secret service, the military, the freakin' KGB, and now an alien death machine intent on silencing him. And it all culminates in a final showdown where Angelo learns the truth behind it all and learns an unlikely secret about his past. TOP LINE is a blast. It's stupid fun, Franco Nero does a great job, and it moves at a brisk pace once the action kicks in around 25 minutes into the film. I very much recommend fans of low-grade cinema seek this gem out.

A washed-up writer ventures into the Colombian jungle in search of gold. He gets much more than he bargained for, however, when he discovers a 15th century Spanish galleon located inside an alien spaceship, which in turn is inside a mountain! His discovery isn't universally popular, though, and it leads him to be pursued by Neo-Nazis and other shady characters out to kill him.

The above synopsis really makes Top Line sound considerably better than it actually is. The ideas are much greater than the execution. It's a silly story but that often results in entertainment on the screen. At best, this one only achieves this fairly sporadically. With scenes involving the galleon, the cyborg and the alien being the best. For the most part it's a mediocre thriller though. The main fault most probably has to be levelled at the direction which is lacking in any proper focus. It does have some half-way decent make-up effects during the cyborg and alien scenes but maybe it could have done with more. It stars the reliable pairing of Franco Nero as the writer and George Kennedy as a Nazi leader; the latter is dubbed with a strange accent.

Everybody with even the slightest interest in cult/exploitation cinema knows that the Italians were true masters of imitation. During the 70s, and especially during the 80s, they joyfully copied premises and ideas of popular Hollywood blockbusters and released them as blatant and shameless rip-offs, although usually with more action, more absurd plot twists, more extravagant characters and much more sleaze. Literally every Hollywood classic that scored big at the box office received several Italian imitations. This "Top Line" presumably holds the world record of stealing ideas from the largest number of US-blockbusters in one and the same script, as it contains story elements of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Cocoon", "Romancing the Stone", "The Terminator", "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", "E. T.", and probably even a few others I'm overlooking. I just wished it was as much fun as it sounds, though...

Franco Nero is one of the biggest and most talented actors to root from Italy, for sure, but the late 80s definitely weren't the best years of his career. Here, he stars as a lowlife author residing in Columbia; - supposedly hunting for ancient treasures but mainly settling for spare chance and free booze leftovers. He, Angelo, does eventually stumble upon a massive discovery, namely a UFO hidden inside an old Spanish galleon (yes, really!). From then onwards, Angelo finds himself pursued by CIA agents, Russian KGB spies, Nazi antique dealers, a cyborg mercenary, and slimy green aliens disguised in the sexy skin of his ex-wife. I honestly don't know how all this ended up in one plot, but I reckon director Nello Rosati and whoever wrote the scripts were experimenting with a lot of drugs at the time.

The problem with "Top Line" is that it looks and sounds like a fun flick, but in reality, it's a downright boring and irritating mess. Like a few other reviewers already righteously stated, the uninteresting parts of the film are incredibly stretched out. The first 15-20 minutes, for instance, contain absolutely nothing of interest, and only feature images of Nero passed out with his head on bar tables and a lot of inaudible dialogs. If you manage to struggle through the first act, what follows next is a thoroughly confusing and incoherent middle-section with some utterly senseless action footage. Suddenly, for example, Nero's character is in the back of pickup truck - amidst boxes full of chickens - and behind the wheel is a drunken Colombian couple that races down a cliff whilst hysterically laughing. They even continue laughing and drinking whilst their truck is being rammed and shot at by one of Angelo's pursuers. What the...? The final act of "Top Line" is amusing, what with the cyborg assassin and the transforming alien, but it's simultaneously the most illogical bunch of nonsense I ever witnessed.

Let's see, is there something else worth mentioning? Oh yeah, the almighty George Kennedy has a small supportive role as a sadist Nazi who enjoys chasing Nero with his car - at a snail's pace - through a field of cactuses. His distinct voice is dubbed, however, which is truly a cinematic crime.

By the late 80s, Italian movie production companies realized they couldn't afford to make even low budget movies without help. The help came from countries willing to offer financial breaks other countries couldnt or wouldnt make. So here is a movie made in Columbia much like the genuine sequel to the original 1966 film Django.

I enjoy this movie more than most late 80s action movies. Franco Nero plays a little unbelievably high functioning alcoholic writer. I suppose he wasn't as much of an alcoholic because he would've dropped dead as early as the cactus chase.

The story is about an unemployed writer who inadvertently stumbles on an alien spacecraft that crashed into a mountain and had been hidden for thousands of years. His discovery leads to his being pursued but it's not clear until the end by who. Russians?, Americans?, aliens? All of the above?

Movie has an alternate title, Alien Terminator and there is a humanoid robot that tries to kill him toward the end but its not enough for a title. I have no clue why this is called Top Line.

Italian action movies do borrow A LOT from other better known movies. The better of these Italian movies blend what they borrow and layer the movie with the influences. This move has a little Alien, Terminator, Indiana Jones, and They Live all mixed in.

George Kennedy drops in for a couple scenes. I imagine he worked for an all expense paid vacation in Central America(why not?). Unlike Franco Nero and William Berger, someone else dubs his lines which further leads me to believe this was a vacation movie. Dubbing is done later in a studio, not convenient.

Anyway, it's not cinematic gold but better than alot of the Italian productions before their studios began going under. They did fall apart not long after the direct to video market exploded and North American movies as cheaply made as this were produced and flooded the market.

This sadly neglected film from 1988 really deserves more attention from aficionados of so-bad-it's-good movies. It might have been a merely incompetent mash-up of Indiana Jones, Romancing the Stone (mainly realized in a cover image that occurs nowhere in the film)), and The Terminator (no, really).. However, the last half hour is so bad it elevates the film to a higher lower bad movie level. It stars reputable B-list Italian actor Franco Nero and a host of unknowns in a story involves discovery of ancient artifacts in Colombia that indicate extraterrestrial contact. There are a few boobs briefly shown and gore is nearly nonextenet, but it's a good bad movie for the time it was made. I recommend being drunk or high or both before you watch it.